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Venezia 'Chansons en dialecte vénitien'

Recordings

'This fizzing multilingual Venetian 'Souvenir' slips down as gratefully as Prosecco on a hot day' (BBC Music Magazine)'This is a good chance to hear one of the world's finest and most versatile tenors accompanied by one of the world's leading accompanists' (American R ...» More

This album is not yet available for downloadHYP202CDs Super-budget price sampler — Deleted

'More than just a highlight sampler. This is a classy collection, brought together with a great deal of care and attention to musical programming seldom found in this kind of CD … A stocking-filler any music lover would appreciate' (Scotland ...» More

Let not melancholy thoughts distress you: come with me, let us climb into our gondola and make for the open sea. We will go past harbours and islands which surround the city, and the sun will sink in a cloudless sky and the moon will rise.

Oh what fun, oh what a sight is the lagoon when all is silent and the moon climbs in the sky; and spreading its soft hair over the tranquil waters, it admires its own reflection like a woman in love.

Draw your veil about you and hide for I see the moon appearing and if it catches a glimpse of you it will grow jealous! This light breeze, playing gently with your ruffled tresses, bears no trace of the dust raised by cartwheels and horses.

If in other days Venus seemed to the Greeks to have risen from a shell, perhaps it was because they had seen a beauty like you in a gondola. You are lovely, young and fresh as a flower. Tears will come soon enough, so now is the time for laughter and for love.

The night is beautiful. Make haste, Nineta, let us take to our boat and enjoy the evening breeze. I have asked Toni to remove the canopy so that we can feel the zephyr blowing in from the sea; Ah!

What bliss it is to exchange sweet nothings alone on the lagoon and by moonlight, to be borne along in our boat! You can lay aside your fan, my dear, for the breezes will vie with each other to refresh you. Ah!

If among them there should be one so indiscreet as to try to lift the veil shielding your breast, pay no heed to its nonsense, for we are all alone and Toni is much too intent on plying his oar, Ah!

The other night I took my blonde out in the gondola: her pleasure was such that she instantly fell asleep. She slept in my arms and I woke her from time to time, but the rocking of the boat soon lulled her to sleep again.

The moon peeped out from behind the clouds; the lagoon lay becalmed. the wind was drowsy. Just the suspicion of a breeze gently played with her hair and lifted the veils which shrouded her breast.

As I gazed intently at my love’s features, her little face so smooth, that mouth, and that lovely breast; I felt in my heart a longing, a desire, a kind of bliss which I cannot describe!

But at last I had enough of her long slumbers and so I acted cheekily, nor did I have to repent it; for, God what wonderful things I said, what lovely things I did! Never again was I to be so happy in all my life!

Do you remember those years, Nina, when you were my one and only thought? What torment, what rage, what anguish! Never an hour of untroubled joy! Luckily that time is gone. But what a shame!

I saw only through your eyes; I knew no happiness but in you … What foolishness, what silly behaviour; oh, but now I take all as it comes and no longer get agitated. But what a shame!

You are lovely, and yet you are woman, no longer perfection incarnate; when your smile is bestowed on another, I too can find solace elsewhere. Blessed be one’s own freedom! But what a shame!

I still love you, but without all that torment, and am weary of all that virtue. I eat, drink, and enjoy my friends, and grow fatter with every day. I am a man who knows what he’s about … But what a shame!

Lovely gondolas on the lagoon row past, I’ll hold you back! When the moon appears in the sky I’ll take to my bed and snore without a thought for the past! But what a shame!